


Falling into a Comma: a collection of typo-based ficlets

by rhymer23



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, Double Entendre, Gen, Humor, Typos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 23:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2365994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhymer23/pseuds/rhymer23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's fallen into a comma!" "If he doesn't get the anecdote, he'll die!" A collection of tiny stories with punch-lines based on typos and malapropisms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These were originally posted in 3 batches in 2009 and 2010. Most of the typos and malapropisms are genuine ones I've spotted online, some of them in my own writing.

"Oh, God, Sheppard! Sheppard!" Rodney shouted. "Are you all right? No, of course you aren't. God, Sheppard!"

The memory was awful. Sheppard had resisted for as long as he could, but not even Ronon could have remained standing against an onslaught as horrendous as that. There had been lace and frilly things. There had been stretchy pink velvet, heaving and taut. The odour had been terrible – all musk and sweetness and sharp floral notes. Sheppard had gone down in the end, overcome by the enormous mounds of flesh and the deep clefts between them. 

Rodney tapped his radio. "Teyla, Ronon! You need to hurry! It's Sheppard, he's…" He pressed his lips together, temporarily unable even to utter it. "He's been… God, it's terrible. He's… he's been mauled by savage breasts."

******

"Uh…" Rodney felt his mouth go suddenly dry. He rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed. "Uh, Sheppard, I think I'm going crazy…"

"I can see it, too," Sheppard hissed. His gun was drooping in his slack hand. "Hallucinogenic spores, d'you think?"

"Has to be." Rodney rubbed his eyes yet again, but Kolya continued to sashay across the dance floor, swinging his feather boa. There were many things that Rodney hoped to see before he died, but a Genii in fishnets was not one of them. Kolya smiled, fluttering his heavily-made-up eyelashes, then launched into the first steps of the can-can.

"Who… who _are_ you?" Rodney managed to gasp.

Kolya stopped mid-kick, and gestured coquettishly at his red-painted cheeks. "Me?" he said. "I'm a rouge Genii."

******

Ronon had been on Atlantis for four years before John finally thought to ask. "Those chests and boxes in your room…" He asked it casually over a beer, following a sparring session in which Ronon had once again beaten the crap out of him. "What's actually in them?"

Ronon cocked an eyebrow. "Wanna see?"

John followed Ronon back to his room. Once inside, Ronon dragged out first chest. "Cover me," he said, and after a moment of hesitation, John pulled out his gun. As Ronon slowly opened the chest, John kept his gun trained on the widening gap. 

The thing inside wasn't moving, though. It appeared to be… "It's a Wraith," John gasped. A very small Wraith, in fact, twisted and crammed into the chest. Movement from underneath suggested that the chest held other creatures, and that at least some of them were alive. John swallowed. "What else have you got in there, buddy?"

"More Wraith," Ronon said. "Some bandits. Three childhood rivals. That physicist who objected to my table manners. Four Replicators. Two fire-breathing krayl beasts. But mostly Wraith."

John found himself incapable of uttering a single coherent word.

"I was once hunted," Ronon explained, "by a hoard of enemies…"

******

Grumbling loudly, Rodney headed back to the ruined mansion, pulling his jacket tighter around his body as he did so. Icicles were dangling from the gargoyles, and frost clung to the diamond-paned windows. 

"Sheppard?" Rodney called, his breath billowing out as steam in the ice-cold air. "What are you doing? It's time to go."

Sheppard was just standing there when Rodney found him, positioned on a small platform in the middle of the largest room. He was holding a skull in his hand, and as Rodney stood frowning in the doorway, Sheppard raised the skull in an exaggerated an unnatural attitude, and looked at it with a ridiculous, affected expression on his face. "Alas, poor Yorrick," he declaimed.

"Alas poor _who_?" Rodney demanded. "Come _on_. It's time to go, so quit doing whatever it is you're doing…"

"I'm acting," Sheppard hissed out of the corner of his mouth. 

"Then stop it," Rodney said crossly. "For crying out loud, Sheppard, why are you acting in such a cold manor?"

******

"Surrender!" Teyla demanded, pressing her stick a little harder against the bandit's throat.

"Never!" the bandit hissed. His knife twisted threateningly, its point getting ever closer to Teyla's flesh.

"I _will_ kill you," she spat. 

The bandit stared at her with utter defiance in his eyes. She had no desire to shed even more blood, but he refused to surrender. Death appeared to be the only way out of the impasse.

Suddenly the bandit's eyes flickered. Movement at the door told her that Ronon had arrived. His face cold and set, Ronon reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. "I made it myself," he said, as he poured a large amount into a glass and held it out to the bandit.

The bandit's nose wrinkled, and a look of slow, creeping terror came over his face. "No," he gasped, as the knife fell from his suddenly-nerveless hand. "I'm surrendering, I'm surrendering."

"They always do," Ronon said to Teyla, swirling the drink in the glass, "when I threaten them with my gin."

******

"Colonel Sheppard. Doctor McKay." Richard shuffled the papers on his desk. This whole thing would be easier if the two offenders hadn't reminded him so intensely of a pair of naughty schoolboys. He cleared his throat. "It really has to stop."

"Why?" McKay protested. "We aren't doing any harm."

"I'm afraid I must beg to differ," Richard said. He gestured sharply at the large pile of printed-out emails, all of them irate. "The catering staff had to make yesterday's meals three times because of hair in the food, and they report that all their citrus products have been…" He cleared his throat, and kept his hand there, pressing it against his mouth as he said the rest of it. "Urinated on," he said.

Sheppard looked smugly at McKay, exuding innocence.

"And you, Colonel…" Richard turned his attention to Sheppard, much to McKay's audible delight. "The jumper engineers also report excessive hair in places where hair has no business to be, the botany department report that priceless specimens have been… curled-up on, and the head of the biochemistry department reports a sudden drop in productivity caused by excessive, er… stroking."

"The department with all the hot scientists?" Sheppard jabbed a finger towards McKay. "That was him."

"You're just jealous you didn't think of it first," McKay retorted.

"Either way," Richard said pointedly, "it has to stop. From now on, neither of you are to play with remote-controlled cats ever again."

******

"Where have you been?" Rodney demanded, his hands on his hips.

Sheppard's movements were supple and fluid as he walked towards them. He smiled, and it was really quite a ridiculous smile, Rodney thought, all dazed and soppy and…

"You got laid!" Rodney shouted. Ronon and Teyla turned round sharply, Ronon smiling in a way that positively shouted out _You sly dog._

"No. Nothing like that." Sheppard shook his head, but his voice was mild and he was still smiling. 

Rodney wrinkled his nose. "You stink," he said. "Perfumed oils. And your clothes are all rumpled…" He lowered his voice, suddenly aware that half the village was listening. "Are you sure you didn't get laid? Whisper it. Is there a jealous husband? Is that it?"

"I didn't get laid, Rodney." Sheppard was still smiling. "It…" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "You can't tell anyone, but Todd just gave me a secret massage."

******

The elders had tried to warn them off.

"Why, oh why didn't we listen to them?" Rodney demanded.

No-one answered him. Sheppard reached out one finger and prodded the nearest wall. It recoiled with a shriek, and began to quiver. Ronon attempted another step forward, and almost fell as the floor trembled beneath him, shrinking away from his feet. The stone wall nearest to Teyla started to sweat, rank-smelling liquid pouring down its surface. 

"What exactly did the elder say, again?" Sheppard asked, shouting over the sudden cacophony of screaming stones.

"That we should not enter the Ruins of the Ancestors," Teyla said, "because they are scared."

******

John bit his lip to keep from screaming. His foot was on fire, blazing with pain. Dimly he was aware of people working on it, unfastening his laces, tugging at his boot. But when the boot was removed, the pain, if anything, was even worse. Although the air was cold, his foot was hot, burning with heat. With every second that passed, the pain spread, flowing up his leg, encasing his body in hot, fuzzy pain, until even his vision was compromised, hatched over with a network of red. 

"Quick!" he heard Rodney shouting, his voice muffled by the scratchy, woollen feeling that had taken over John's senses. "We have to get him back to Atlantis. He's showing all the symptoms of sock."

******

"I think he's lying." Ronon ruffled Rodney's hair.

Sheppard touched Rodney's head experimentally. "Hmm… It depends on how you define your terms. The hair's receding, of course. Does that make him… shiny?"

Teyla ran her hand across Rodney's back. "The weave is far more smooth than the hand-woven fabrics of Athos."

"Do clothes count?" Ronon ask.

"You want us to investigate the texture of his skin underneath his clothes?" Sheppard said. "Buddy, don't go there."

Rodney found his voice at last. "What are you guys doing?"

Teyla looked at him patiently. "You loaded your plate with six varieties of cake, saying that you did not mind which flavour you had because you were not fuzzy. We were merely aiming to confirm your claim."

******

(And, finally, those two words that I'm incapable of writing correctly. I've mentioned this one several times before.)

Sheppard was on his knees, coughing so badly that Rodney just knew that he was going to die from it. He struggled for breath, and, God! was that actual movement there in his throat, as if something was actually crawling out of his body, breaking free, like that thing in that Alien movie, but coming out of his mouth and not his body?

Sheppard's face was almost purple with lack of air. _I don't know what to do!_ Rodney thought. _I don't know what to do!_ Then he saw something appear at Sheppard's lips. It looked like… "Oh, God!" he gasped. It looked like an elbow! Then Sheppard coughed again, a low, agonised sound, and the elbow turned into a whole arm, and behind the arm came a body, and then a final agonised cough pushed the creature completely free.

A very small female dropped down to the ground. "Oh, goodie," she said, peering up at Sheppard's tortured face as he struggled for breath. "He's in pain." She pulled out a pen and started to write.

Rodney was unable to do anything but gape in outrage. "What…" He swallowed, desperately fighting for words. "Who are you? What were you doing inside Sheppard?"

"Oh, it's McKay. Cool!" the woman said, though it was clear that her focus was almost exclusively on Sheppard. "'Sheppard was in agony,'" she said, making air quotes with her fingers. "'A small whumper escaped his lips.' No?" She turned her back on Rodney, as if his incomprehension was irrelevant, and watched with wide-eyed glee as Sheppard staggered painfully to his feet. "Heroic Staggering," she said, in a hushed and reverent voice.

******


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These were written a year after the first batch, when a sudden surge of comments on the first batch reminded me of their existence. A few of these typos were suggested by readers of the first batch.

"Eheu!"

The strained voice dragged Rodney slowly back to consciousness. Groaning, he began to roll over, then froze, his heart pounding. What if he'd been hideously injured? Oh God, what…?

"Movere non possum. Eheu!"

And now some idiot was babbling gibberish in some barbaric alien language! "Could be dying here!" Rodney reproached. He moved his hand, moved his arm, moved his foot. He remembered Sheppard turning grim and silent as he desperately fought the controls of the jumper. He remembered crashing…

Oh God, Sheppard!

"Surge! Fatuus es, serve!"

Rodney opened his eyes, and painfully sat up. Ronon and Teyla were stirring behind him. Pressing his hand to his throbbing brow, Rodney peered into the tangled wreckage that had once been the front of the jumper. A pair of sandaled feet kicked angrily, and a body squirmed imperiously in a purple-lined toga. And Sheppard…

"Oh God!" Rodney turned desperately to Ronon and Teyla. "It's Sheppard… He's sprawled lifelessly across the consul."

******

"Here's another one." Chuck knew the drill by now. He flipped the switch that made Kolya's voice fill the entire room. He saw Major Lorne stiffen as he gripped his gun. Doctor Weir assumed her mask: the mask of a leader who was hurting inside.

"I presume I have your attention," Kolya's voice said. "I will kill Colonel Sheppard and his team in one hour, unless…" His voice faded away, and there was a faint sound of rustling paper. "Unless you send us… twenty-three bananas and a… a dancing spaniel!"

Doctor Weir sagged. Doctor Beckett cleared his throat. "I… er… I might happen to have a West Highland terrier somewhere about, if that will do?"

"It won't do," Weir said wearily. "It never does." Her face grim, she gave the necessary orders. 

"With respect, ma'am…" Chuck heard Major Lorne begin. He knew what Lorne was going to say. It had half killed his team, tracking down the dynasty of tribbles that had been demanded in the morning. Doctor Zelenka was in the infirmary, screaming in Czech about snakes and sausages. 

"We have no choice," Weir said, as the communication channel crackled into life again, and Kolya said, "…and I want it with frills on."

_Damn you, Kolya_ , Chuck thought, pressing a clenched fist against the console. _Damn you all, you kidnapping Genii, with your random demands!_

******

Sheppard shouted something. Rodney froze in horror, feeling his face flood red.

A bullet flew past him, so close that he almost felt it. _I'm going to die_ , Rodney thought. He fell to his knees and hunched forward, protecting his head with one hand. With the other hand, he gripped his pistol, aiming it falteringly at targets he couldn't see. 

"Rodney!" Sheppard shouted. Rodney could see him out of the corner of his eye, half hidden by his own shielding arm. Sheppard was behind a rock, but was rising up now to cover Rodney. "Come _on_!" Sheppard urged him. "Get into cover."

Rodney cowered even smaller. _I won't,_ he thought. _I'm not. Not with him. Not now._ A bullet tore at his jacket. He screamed with the shock of it, though it hadn't broken his skin. 

"For God's sake, Rodney…" 

_To Hell with it_ , Rodney thought. _I can always say no._

Keeping himself small, he scurried crab-like to the rock. As soon as he was safely behind it, Sheppard crouched down again. He was breathing fast, blood seeping out of a hole in his sleeve. "Why didn't you come?" he gasped, dust staining his face. "I said we could both duck behind this rock."

"You didn't," Rodney had to tell him, as he pulled at Sheppard's sleeve with anxious fingers. "You didn't say duck. The author's finger slipped, and she started the word one letter to the right."

Sheppard said nothing at all for a while, as bullets smashed into the ground around them. Then he spoke, his face unreadable. "Oh, duck!"

******

"Um…" Rodney said, as he came panting up to join the rest of them.

John let out a weary breath. He had seen that look too many times before. "Rodney…" he began.

"It wasn't my fault!" Rodney looked anxiously over his shoulder. "These natives have such ridiculous superstitions. All I said was--" He broke off, biting the words back. "At any rate, there was no reason for them to over-react like this. I said sorry." 

"So what is it this time?" John asked. "Peasants with pitchforks?"

"Um…" Rodney said, but then John saw them. There were hundreds of them, surging out of their houses, racing unerringly towards the place where the four of them were standing. Their leader held a long knife. Behind him came a crowd of people with brown paper bags and plastic boxes. Following them, moving more carefully, a group of children came with silver platters, and at least three were carrying chocolate cake. 

John looked over his shoulder, studying the path that led to the Gate. The mob was close now, their voices audible. "…care for a flask of tea?" he heard, and, "No, please, take two." The cold-eyed leader smiled, dipping his knife in a pot of honey. The mountain of sandwiches on the nearest silver platter was terrifyingly large.

He swallowed. "I… Uh… I think the phrase is: run away!"

As they fled, he turned accusingly to Rodney. "One day, Rodney, it would be nice to visit a village without being chased out by a lunch mob."

******

They had all heard Colonel Sheppard say the words. "On my command authority--" he had shouted, before the transmission had ended in a scream of static. He wanted Richard to give to order that would condemn him to death. He wanted Richard to give the order that meant that Atlantis would live, even if Colonel Sheppard and his team did not. 

Richard knew that everyone was watching him, waiting for his decision. Oh Lord, he thought, how easy it was to sit back on Earth and tell people that they had made the wrong choice. How hard it was to be here, having to make a choice like this. 

Perhaps the situation wasn't as desperate as Colonel Sheppard believed. Richard pressed his lips together in a tight line. Let four people die, so that hundreds could live. Or refuse to give up on those four, on the wild, impossible chance that you could get everybody out of this alive…?

"Sir?" Amelia asked, her hand poised over the button that would transmit the order.

Richard let out a slow breath. His hands rose to his collar, and he began to undo the fastenings, but his fingers fumbled, refusing to co-operate. Removing the jacket was hard, and removing the shirt was almost impossible, but he managed it. Sitting on the floor, he worried at his shoes and his socks until they came off. When he turned his attention to his pants, he got them almost down to his knees before his hands froze entirely. 

"I can't do it," he said at last, admitting defeat. "I can't bare to give that order," he told them all.

The ripple of relief that ran through the Gate Room was audible, and Richard smiled.

******

"I can't see him." Rodney cowered in the field of pits and crevices. "He must have fallen down. He's dead by now. Sheppard!" he shouted. "John?"

Ronon and Teyla were still searching, their faces set and grim. As Rodney watched, Teyla leaped nimbly over a long straight crevice, then paused to look down the deep round pit at its far end. "He isn't here!" she called. 

"Sheppard?" Ronon shouted, jumping over a fissure that curved in a near semi-circle, then went straight towards another deep pit. "Sheppard? Buddy?"

Rodney started to move falteringly. "What if…" Plucking up his courage, he jumped across a small pit, then another, then another. "I can't…"

"John." Teyla said it quietly, almost under her breath. She sank to her knees, looking down a pit that had a curious curving tail. "It's John," she told them, looking up. "He's fallen into a comma."

******

Jennifer had never seen so many lacerations. People were coming in from all sides, some of them walking while they clutched their bleeding wounds, and some of them lying still and silent. She did what she could, but soon they ran out of beds.

"What's doing this?" she asked, when she could. Pulling off her surgical gloves, she scraped a hand across her flushed face.

"Don't be obtuse," Rodney snapped. He had been relegated to a chair, and was clearly furious about it. "It was a Wraith."

They brought Ronon and Colonel Sheppard in together, pale beneath the makeshift bandages. All anger left Rodney's face as Jennifer hurried to deal with them. Much later, when she finished, she found Rodney at her side. "They'll live," she told him, answering his silent question. "Their blood loss was acute, but…"

"Acute," Rodney said bitterly. "Right. Of course it was."

Jennifer leant back, pushing her hands into the base of her spine, feeling the muscles stretch. "What sort of weapon is the Wraith using?" The wounds were inconsistent, some clearly made with a sharp but tapering implement, and some with an object much blunter. Some looked more like the bruises you would get if you walked hard into a rather substantial table.

Rodney pulled up a chair and sat down heavily next to Colonel Sheppard's bed, and sighed wearily. "You see, it descended upon us like an avenging angle..."

******

"You're looking rather lovely tonight."

John froze with his hand on the door. "Who's there?" But he already knew there was nobody there, of course. Drawing his gun, he covered all the empty corners of the room. 

"Quite dashing. Sleek and smooth. I do wish I could master that look, but, then, my options are limited."

"Who…?" John faltered. The voice appeared to be coming from the floor. "Are you--"

"Talking to you? The old Robert De Niro thing in front of the mirror? No-one else here in the room? But for the record, pal, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to your rather attractive tight black t-shirt. You, I'm not interested in. And as for your hair…"

John gripped the gun tighter. Getting down on his knees, he peered under the bed. There was no-one there.

"Some people like your hair. Apparently." The voice sniffed. "Never seen the point of it myself. All that carefully studied negligence: quite ridiculous. But I'm forgetting myself." The voice cleared its throat. "I do love the way you frame his muscles. Your cut is quite fantastic."

Crouching there with his ear so close to the floor, John was fairly sure that the voice was coming from his boots. Some sort of transmitter… "Rodney?" he attempted. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Course it isn't, John," the voice said, sneering his name. "I'm just doing what it says in the narrative. 'His uniform was complimented by a pair of military boots.' So go away and let me get complimenting." The voice changed, turning lower and more sultry. "You doing anything later tonight?"

John fled. The voice fled with him, grunting an "ow!" with each step.

******

"I will have you know," said Rodney painfully, "that it is - oof! - quite impossible to - ow! - do my usual save-the-galaxy-through-the-power-of-my-intellect thing while - ugh! - stuck in here."

Sheppard's voice sounded muffled. "At least you can still think. I'm supposed to fly a jumper, remember?"

It was a good point, but Rodney had no intention of acknowledging it. "It's all right for Teyla, I suppose. She's small."

"But spare a thought for Ronon," Sheppard said as sharply as someone could speak when confined in a narrow metal cylinder. "You still with us, buddy? Buddy?"

Ronon gave an inarticulate grunt.

Rodney squirmed, managing to twist himself around a little in the tight space. His head stuck out of the end of the metal tube, but it didn't really help. "Zelenka?" he called, hearing footsteps behind him. "Can you…?" Oh! Was that the smell of gunpowder? Was that…? _Oh no, no, no, no, no!_ "Don't light the fuse!" he squeaked. "Radek, don't even threaten it. That's not funny!"

"Ronon?" Sheppard said urgently. "Damn it, get me the author! We need to depart from cannon now!"

******

Note: 

I was quite mortified to find that I'd made the "duck behind this rock" error in one of my own stories. Luckily I noticed it before posting, or my status as a gen author would have been seriously undermined. 

Apologies for the dodgy Latin. I blame it on the consul's squashed state.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the final batch...

Only a handful of people remained on their feet. Jennifer was barely standing, exhausted from long hours spent trying to stave off disaster. She had lost too many staff already, struck down whenever her back was turned. 

She barely registered it when her radio crackled into life; lack of sleep had already caused her to hallucinate Ancients telling her that everything was fixed, that everyone would be fine, that she could step down now and _sleep_. "Jennifer," she heard Rodney say at last, his voice shrill and insistent. "We've traced it at last. We've eliminated it. It's over, but Sheppard… Ronon couldn't… Just come. Come now."

As ever, urgency gave her a new surge of energy. When she reached the scene, Teyla and Rodney were crouched over Colonel Sheppard's still form. The injuries were as expected: the heavy blows to the head; the broken ribs from sharp metal corners jabbing into the flesh; the impression of embossed writing, raw and red on the skin; the mark of an ornate screw, painted on the brow. 

"But we did it," Rodney said, as Jennifer began to work. He had the air of someone desperate to find consolation in the dark. "We stopped it." Jennifer glanced up, and saw Ronon standing on the defeated assailant, holding it down with his feet. Only a fragment of its writing was visible, bringing with it memories of champagne and celebration; of a party to mark five years of the Atlantis expedition; of proud and solemn words inscribed in brass. Only two weeks before. They had brought this attack upon themselves, in their pride and their confidence. They had unleashed this enemy on the city.

Afterwards, when everything was over and she knew that everyone would live, she was able to sit down and make her report. "The people of Atlantis," she wrote, "were struck down by a deadly plaque."

***

The words refused to come. John cleared his throat, and tried again. "Uh, Rodney. You're… uh… You look…"

"Different," Teyla said, with emphatic tact. John had been about to say something else entirely.

Ronon just laughed.

John swallowed. "You… uh… Did you _touch_ something? Something Ancienty?" His own hands were about to rest on the nearest console. He snatched them back. 

"Your clothes are too tight, McKay," Ronon said, still laughing.

It was too much to resist. "Yeah, Rodney." John looked at him appraisingly. "And you really should fasten a few more buttons. That low-cut look works on--" Catching Teyla's glare, he stopped himself before going any further. 

"Yeah," Ronon said, swatting Rodney on the arm. "Maybe you should borrow Teyla's--"

"For the last time, can you people just go away and stop your juvenile jokes." Rodney stood with his hands on his hips, his breast heaving. "I _told_ you I was busty today."

******

"Oh God." Rodney came to a halt, struggling for breath. "What happened?" He turned a full circle. The ground was disturbed as if from a long and violent struggle, and there was red-- God, the thick red liquid was everywhere. "What happened?" he demanded again. "Where's Sheppard?"

"Gone." Ronon was covered from head to toe with red. "I couldn't… I tried--"

"We both tried." Teyla was crouched on the edge of the water, her arms covered with scratches. "We did everything we could, Rodney, but it was too strong for us."

"We have to get him back." Rodney pulled out his life signs detector. "We have to call for help. A rescue team in a jumper. The _Daedalus_ can beam him out. We have to--" He looked at the others, furious, red-stained, defeated. "What happened to him?"

Ronon cried out wordlessly, smashing his fist into the nearest tree. "He was taken," Teyla said, her voice bleak. "He was carried away by the fierce currant."

******

Rodney opened his eyes slowly, his hands gripping the sides of his chair. "We aren't dead," he said. "Why aren't we dead?"

"Soft landing." Sheppard grinned at him in the gloom. The glass behind him was coated in something thick and brown, flecked in places with white. 

Rodney stood up carefully; perhaps parts of him were hurt without him realising it. Moving to the computer, he began to analyse the strange environment that they had landed in. "Don't--!" he began, too late, as Sheppard opened the back hatch. It splashed down with a thick noise. The smell that came to Rodney's nostrils was unmistakeable. 

Abandoning the computer, Rodney pushed past Sheppard and stood in the doorway. The whole surface of the world, as far as he could see it, was brown, except where swirling hillocks of white rose from the surface, and far away, when he turned, he saw globes of dark red, with curved green masts rising from their middles. 

"Oh," he gasped, as he crouched and scooped up a handful of the thick brown substance. "We're doomed." He took a mouthful, then another, then another. He had a plate in his pack, didn't he? He wandered over to get it, shaking his head as he did so. "It'll be hours before Atlantis comes to check up on us." Perhaps he could send Sheppard to bring him back some of those distant white hills. "Doomed," he said, his mouth full. 

Sheppard looked at him, his eyebrow raised.

"You're the one who crashed," Rodney reminded him. He licked his lips. "And now we're stranded in this endless dessert."

******

"Just arrived on the _Daedalus_ ," Rodney said, drawing out the cork with an air of reverence. "The new Beaujolais." He poured a glass, then held it up to the light, swirling it slowly. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. "Such a sublime nose!" 

"Nose?" Ronon frowned in puzzlement. "It's just a drink, right?"

"Or what about a nice Burgundy?" Rodney poured a second glass. "Or is champagne more your sort of thing? No, it's too sparkling, and you're…" He waved his hand in a circle, as if seeking the right word. " _You_ know. _Not._ Maybe some vintage port?"

"Rodney..." John shook his head impatiently, but Rodney flapped his hand, dismissing John and all urgency with one airy wave. Draining his first glass, he poured himself another. "Quite… quite shpectactular," he managed. "Did I ever tell you guys that you're my best friends. My _best_ friends. Oh, is that chocolate?"

It was indeed chocolate. Rodney's questing hand missed. The results were unfortunate. 

"Rodney…" John said again. Behind him, Teyla stood armed and ready, patiently waiting for the mission to begin. "Stop it," he said sharply, as Rodney poured himself a chocolate-smeared glass of champagne. "Stop wining, and come on this mission with us."

******

"…and then I said, 'No, not the red one, the _purple_ one.'" Rodney ended it with an air of triumph. Grinning, he snapped his finger, as if awaiting a torrent of applause. 

But nothing but silence greeted him. Rodney's shoulders slumped. Wiping away tears that might have been from laughter, he tried again. "The purple one. Get it?"

Sheppard said nothing at all.

Ronon looked up, his hand gripping Sheppard's forearm. "You remembered the bit about the…?"

"Yes, yes. Llamas. Of _course_ I did." Rodney chewed his lip. "Sheppard," he said. "Listen to me, John. I'll start it all over again. Last night, in the lab. I was hard at work, and Zelenka came in, and…"

The story unfolded all over again. When it was half told, Teyla turned away sharply, her hand pressed to her mouth. It ended, as it always did, in purple. 

"I don't understand," Sheppard said, his pale lips moving faintly. Letting out a fragile breath, he sank deeper into the pillow, his eyes sliding shut. 

"Sheppard! Oh God, Sheppard, he's--"

"Still alive," Ronon said firmly. He was holding on as if he was never planning on letting go.

"But for how much longer?" Rodney raked a hand across his face. "If he doesn't get the anecdote soon, he'll die."

******

The first was with Todd. "One, two, three," John counted, as the Wraith held him at the waist with one strong hand. He guided their motion, taking them out beneath the beauty of the stars. Locked together, they moved as one, dancing to a music as old as time. 

"Ah, John Sheppard," Todd sighed at last, when they were breathless beneath the moonlight. A dusky pink glow was blooming on his cheeks. "I haven't had such a partner in years. I believe I will abort the attack, after all."

The second was with Michael. "And how I ended up with you," Rodney said, "I don't know, since, well, uh, Teyla… She's your normal partner, and I don't…"

"Just hold me," Michael growled.

"Mind my feet," Rodney gasped, as they whirled through labs and hallways, as hybrids rapturously watched their dance. "Ow! Ow!"

"That was quite wonderful," Michael said when they were finished and flushed beside a sea of blind computer screens. "I believe I will let myself become human, after all, so I enjoy this experience again. Hybrid army, disband!"

The third was with a Replicator. "I… find myself… feeling… emotion," he gasped in wonder, as Ronon's strong arm held him tight around the waist; as Ronon whirled him and raised him and took him to places he had never been before. "Is this… Could this be…?"

Ronon bore down on him, leading the dance, always leading the dance. 

"I believe our base code is being rewritten," the Replicator sighed, his eyes starry. "From now and forever onwards, all we want to do is dance, dance, dance."

The alarm fell silent. Slowly, with a sigh of relief, Atlantis emerged from its state of siege. Teyla sighed, smoothing down her ball gown, laying down her fan, her arms empty and the music silent. 

"We did it!" Rodney said afterwards, when danger was over and coffee was flowing. "We only had four minuets to save Atlantis, and we did it with one minuet to spare."

******

"Unscheduled Gate," Chuck announced. "Receiving IDC. It Colonel team."

Woolsey across the console to. "Colonel, what is?"

"What?" The Colonel's voice was muffled by the radio. 

"Said, what is?" Woolsey frowned in confusion. Chuck felt cold fist of dread grip his. _Oh God_ , thought, _not_

"We were," the Colonel explained. "Hot. The!" His voice urgent. 

Chuck hand hovered button, as awaited the command. A while, Woolsey sighed, nodding. "The," he ordered.

Chuck pressed button. Colonel team raced the Gate. "The Wraith!" Colonel shouted, but Chuck already truth. "They culled dozen more words!"


End file.
